Advice
KEEP TRAINING AND STAY AHEAD
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is not something we hear about too much in our industry but in some other professions it’s an essential way of life. Lawyers, Accountants, and Architects for example have to keep up to date with all the latest developments that effect their businesses, for example; new materials, regulations and working practices. They are obliged to take time out to keep on learning or risk being falling behind or worse, accused of negligence. However, for many of us in the KBB installer industry, the idea of downing tools, even for a day, is unthinkable … “we’d lose a day’s money,” and “we already know all we need to know to do a good job, so why go?” In reality, many of us never even see another fitting team at work, so we keep on doing what we know best and getting the same results but perhaps with an occasional step forward when we pick up a hint or tip from a colleague or article in a trade magazine like The Installer or perhaps purchase a new tool or gadget on the advice of our local supplier or merchant. But we’re professionals, too, aren’t we? This shouldn’t mean that we just get paid to do what we do; professionalism should engender an attitude of wanting to be the best, of wanting to learner better ways of doing things and then sharing them to help improve our industry. So why am I saying all this? Well, I was recently given the opportunity to spend two days with Corian on
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their fabricators’ training course. I was with a group of other independent experts who, like me, get called in when installations go wrong. In our small group we had more than 150 years of experience, so what more could we possibly learn?
The answer was … a lot! The course was actually, invaluable. For example, we learned: The right steps and the right sequence to ensure a perfect result New skills that will improve the range of work that we can accomplish professionally The reasons why aspects of the job go wrong for some installers (learn from everyone else’s mistakes instead of your own, it’s cheaper!) Tips and tricks from someone who has not only done this job many times, but has picked up ideas from previous course attendees that are worth passing on
